By Manzar Bilal, TwoCircles.net,
During last few years several educated and professional Muslim youths were killed in fake encounters and many were put behind bars on the false charges of terrorism. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh top the list in this category. Sayed Khwaja Yunus was one of those unfortunate who lost his life in a case of custodial death by the Maharashtra police.
27-year old Khwaja Yunuus was the only bread earner of his family. He was earning decent money working as a software engineer in Dubai since 2000. His family members could not even imagine that their happiness would come to an end and their dreams would be shattered within less than two years.
Khwaja returned from Dubai on leave on 11 November, 2002 for the search of life partner but unfortunately, on 23rd December, 2002 he was picked up from his home town Parbhani, nearly 200 km from Aurangabad, district of Maharashtra in connection with the BEST bus bomb blast that took place in Ghatkopar, Mumbai on December 2, 2002.
The case was much discussed by both electronic as well as print media when the news came to light that Khwaja Yunus disappeared from the lock-up in the first week of January, 2003. Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Vaze claimed that a Crime Branch team led by him was taking Khwaja to Aurangabad for investigation on January 7, 2003, when Yonus allegedly escaped after the four-wheeler carrying the team reportedly met with an acciden
But this official story could not satisfy the family members of Khwaja Yonus and his father Khwaja Ayub filed a petition in Bombay High Court demanding a fair probe in the case and expressed his doubt that his son might be victim of custodial death. Consequently the case was handed over to the state CID in March 2003, which admitted that Yunus was killed in custody and found 14 police officers involved in his murder. CID arrested nine of them in 2004, including three officers, Praful Bhonsale, Hemant Desai and Sachin Vaze. Later, all of them were released on conditional bail.
The Mumbai High Court’s division bench of Justice S Radhakrishnan and Justice R S Mohite ordered the CID to close Vaze’s FIR in which he claimed about escaping of Yonus as investigations had found the complaint to be maliciously false.
The court had also directed the POTA special judge to take criminal action, if necessary, against all those who are involved in Yunus’ murder and also those who supported Vaze’s claim that Khwaja Yunus had escaped from police van on January 7, 2003.
CID’s claim that Yunus was killed in custody got much strength when co-accused Dr Abdul Mateen who was lodged in a cell next to Yunus at the Ghatkopar police station where they were interrogated, informed the court that he had overheard an officer shouting at Yunus and then saying; “Yeh aise nahin bolega” (He won’t talk this way). Then Yunus was dragged into another room and when Yunus returned, he was vomiting blood.
Mateen is a medical doctor with masters in forensic medicine and had been working at JJ Hospital in Mumbai told the court: “A close examination of Yunus suggested that he was assaulted by boots and this may have led to a cardiac rupture, leading to his death a few hours later.”
It is to be noted that nine accused of the Ghatkopur blast, including Dr Mateen, were acquitted by a Special POTA court in 2006 because of insufficient evidences for trial.
In its report, state CID mentioned that the mobile phone records of Vaze and Joshi for the relevant date -January 6 and 7, 2003- were corrupted, which was a very suspicious and possibly a destruction of evidence. The CID also found out that the mobile phones many of the accused officers were not in their own names.
Interestingly, Vaze had claimed that they had lodged Yunus at the police lock-up in Lonavla, while on their way to Aurangabad but the senior officer of the Lonavla police station, told the CID that the person kept in the lock-up was not YUnus.
In October 2006, CID sought permission for trial of 14 policemen involved in the case. In December 2007 state government granted sanction to prosecute former assistant sub-inspector Sachin Vaze, Rajendra Tiwari, Rajaram Nikam and Vasant Desai.
On the appeal of Khwaja’s mother Aasiya Begum to the court that the 10 police officers along with Sachin Vaze and the three police constables should be also investigated for their role in her son’s death, the Mumbai High Court had questioned the state government in January 2008, as why they were not willing to take action against the 10 other police officials.
In February 2008, the state government filed an affidavit and expressed its stand that it was not to grant sanction to prosecute other 10 officers in the case. The government argued that after due consideration of the investigating officer’s report and the director general’s recommendations, it found that there was no direct or circumstantial evidence against the other 10 officers.
In May 2008, the then CID chief and Additional Director General of Police Shiv Prasad Singh Yadav surprised people by recommending to Maharashtra government to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and expressed helplessness of his department saying that his department was finding it difficult to take action against the 14 police officers accused in the case, with several hurdles created to block investigations and arrest of the suspects.
“The CBI is competent enough to thwart any political and bureaucratic pressure without any fear, which is not the case with the CID,” explained Yadav.
He accused the policemen involved in the case had not being cooperating and instead creating hurdles by filing flimsy complaints to the state Director General of Police and petitions in various courts against the investigating officers.
He also said that the suspects enjoyed the protection of senior bureaucrats and police officers who pressured investigating officers to go slow. In such circumstances, it was not possible for the CID to investigate the case.
Khwaja Yunus’s mother Aasiya Begum also demanded that an impartial probe should be carried out by the CBI since the CID failed to find evidence to prosecute 10 officials or because it was working under pressure.
However, as per the permission of the state government CID filed a 1,000 page long charge sheet in November 2008 against only four policemen – API Sachin Vaze and constable Rajendra Tiwari, Rajaram Nikam and Sunil Desai – for murdering Yunus and destruction of evidence.
In July 2009, CID asked the state government to form a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the case saying that there were some influential officers involved in this case.
It should be recalled that after the death of Ayub, the father of Yonus, Aasiya Begum filed a petition in the High Court seeking compensation for the family. A session court ordered government to pay Rs 5,000 per month as compensation, until Khwaja was found.
In January 2008, government decided to give compensation of Rs 3 lakh and not as per order of session court saying that it was beyond the jurisdiction of the lower court to award compensation. Aasiya Begum refused to take the compensation money instead asking for justice to be served.
In a fresh development, a division bench of Mumbai High Court comprised Justice J N Patel and Justice Amjad Sayed while hearing the petition filed by Aasiya Begum, asked the Maharashtra government on 8th December 2009, to come up with solid reasons for rejecting the state CID’s plea to prosecute 10 officers of Mumbai Police in the Khwaja Yunus case.
When public prosecutor PA Pol told the court that the state had already filed an affidavit in February 2008 and they are not changing their stand to “not prosecute the other 10” officers in this case, judges asked:
“Your own elite investigation agency says they played a role in Yunus’s custodial death then why are you differing from it, what is the justification for refusing the plea to charge the 10 officers?”
The judges also reminded a 2008 HC order which stated that prima facie; an offence had been made out by the CID against the officers.
It should be noted that earlier a division Bench of Justices J N Patel and Roshan Dalvi had also asked DGP P S Pasricha to explain as why he did not accord the sanction and indicated that if government was not satisfied with the progress of the case, it might be handed over to CBI.
However, seven year after Aasiya Begum’s son was killed by police whose duty to protect citizens, her husband died because of grieve of his son’s murder, is still struggling for justice. She spent thousands of rupees in paying fees of her advocate and also in traveling from one place to another only for the actual punishment of her son’s killers, but would she succeed in her mission? On the basis of circumstances it seems very difficult as government has been putting barrier rather to punish guilty. These all are happing in the state where Congress-NCP government is in the power who are claiming to be secular and democratic parties. How much time it will take for Aasiya Begum to get justice is an unanswered question.